[Global] End Game.

[Nauta F'mos Geey]

If he was not a part of a race; the alchemist would have stalled to better study the chamber. A scholar would have their attention on the arrangement of the stones- true to Cassion's own sphere of influence their histories could be stories on their own but Nauta? Nauta was more interested in their make. Some he was acquainted with but the others he never encountered before he would have dismissed as something dreamt up by a drunkard for one extra swig of ale. Too bad they were too detailed that a souvenir would definitely be missed.

Though they were nothing compared to the key. Nauta's eyes narrowed as he looked at the rest- actual keys as far as he could tell. If nothing else his reminded him of a puzzle to entertain the rich and smart, the ones who can afford to waste their time on the distraction. Now with one of his own, he too decided to give it a go; to slide, twist, push and pull the parts to try and fit them anywhere else to form an actual key but it did not even bend as he ended up with a cut finger. If it was a person to be opened instead of a door, he may actually succeed.

And then the idea he abandoned because the door was too well made and his target properly protected. If he di-... no. He should not pursue that plan any further. While he would not trust an immortal so easily, he could trust Cassion's desire to see all his machinations come to fruition; whatever his goal was. It would not do for Nauta to risk himself if could trouble him further down the line or, have the attempt recognized for what it was. Sabotage.

At least his key was not needed to open his door and again he entertained the idea he was supposed to cut someone up. Not one of the other participants but the dangerous dreams suggested by Cassion's spiel of Gilgarod. Nauta was acquainted dangerous dreams through Prince, but Prince had a use for the aukari back then. He may not be as lucky with Gilgarod. Dubious, he brushed the gash with his key before he tested it with a finger pressed in and then, an arm extended into it before he looked back at the immortal. Nauta was not the least bit encouraged.

The passage he found, much like the key, made no sense. Thinking the key to Gilgarod may be a map of Gilgarod instead, the aukari held it to the passage for a sign but there was nothing to suggest any relationship between the two. Then in his examination of them, it happened. The realization. He was not a trained medic and only learned enough to get yet another aukari back into the fight until burned out which made his own study of the mutants in Etzos which allowed him to finally see the hallways for what they were; alive and at his heels.

He tried to get out of the way of the maniacal visages, even the one familiar enough to him to address him by name. Surprisingly enough it was the old man which worried Nauta more than the hostiles snapping at him. How long was he being observed that the elder was able to even bring those up? The aukari had no remorse as he only felt pride for the scenes he watched a second time. As far as he was concerned those he made to suffer brought it upon themselves- the same as those to benefit from his generosity.

Of course back then, he did not expect those phälrothït to get back at him- not like this. If he was not so occupied with trying to get out of the way, he would have spat in disgust at being called a cog. He was not like the fools who willingly became cogwheels of Faldrun's despicable mechanism known as Sirothelle, like those tearing into him. The relish in the voice of Gilgarod fueled the aukari's struggle. If this was the scheme of those accursed immortals, to sacrifice their representatives in the race, he would struggle as much as needed to deny them the satisfaction now that their betrayal was uncovered.

However the old man was neither immortal nor Gilgarod and with no other better suggestions... Thankfully the suggestion worked but the other ideas? They were a lot to take in. It was ironic the elder Geey made the perfect example of what an aukari could expect from their service to Faldrun. Nothing. Even in success, all the glory went to that psychopath with the other to remain in obscurity, glad they may get to live longer and if they were lucky, comfortably. Was there any wonder Nauta left as soon as he realized the greatest scam in Idalos?

If it was his choice, his achievements- what could have been his anyway, would have went to his name and by extension the Geeys which made it a shame his own desertion would have the opposite effect. It was his father, not Faldrun which Nauta venerated as not even the immortal could take away the man's greatest achievement. Craven, that was what the other aukari rushing to their deaths for their one shot considered it. Hearing his grandfather suggest the same was an idea the aukari balked at and, expressed through the old vauni saying of how the aukari were but a poor imitation of their progenitor. Obviously it was not Faldrun which Nauta meant despite him usually referred to by the phrase.

To Nauta, it would be that underrated quality which would get him to the heart of PrisonKeep whole enough for the prize.

But Teesdat Geey was still his blood and anyone else to speak of his kin that way would have been ignored regardless of Nauta's own needs to triumph. He considered it for a moment- after a quick query of the stone man's thoughts of the family he abandoned now that he considered himself no longer an aukari, before Nauta agreed to do what he could to free him. At least freeing his grandfather from his incarceration in Gilgarod would be a better goal than retrieving an immortal's prize. However with this opportunity, was it too much to think Cas-... yeah, it was. The idea of treasure though better, was not as important as something else which Nauta wanted Teesdat to agree to.

His own father, though he knew little of his predecessor in the occult, was proud to pass on the little tales he knew; something Nauta remembered as the rare moments of pride the man visibly expressed. The proposal was simple. After he was freed, if he could, Teesdat was to make good with his son. Nauta did not care if the stone-man changed his tune into believing his son was now enough to receive his birthright but Nauta wanted his father to at least have some form of closure of the fate of his lost progenitor and, Nauta did not want it coming from him. That would be... troublesome.

And at the very least, the receptiveness of the no-longer aukari to the request could at least help Nauta determine for himself the type of person the grandfather he only heard of in stories, was.

[Plague]

Nauta's Key, PrisonKeep

((If I misinterpreted your choice, let me know and I'll rewrite it))

"My family, eh?" The stone creature's voice reverberated through Nauta, but low enough that the 'thing' circling round and round them never drew closer. To the alchemist, it seemed as though all of PrisonKeep were hungry and the voice he faced was this unimaginable thing. It circled him, seeking him, but somehow his grandfather held it off. "Ah, but my son was not so different than you. Headstrong. Rebellious. Tempestuous. His flame was strong and it flared against all who would see it diminished or restrained. I regret, now, that I was not present for most of my sons early years. Faldrun assigned me an important task and it fell to one of the loyal, one of his Occult, to see it through. My task took me far from my family, to places quiet that did not echo with the words of our maker." The old man seemed wistful, even somber. "I took within me a shard of something greater, a resonance that burned brighter than the fire of my own soul. I pursued Faldrun's answers but, in return, was granted knowledge he might well have preferred I never know. When I returned to Sirothelle, at last, I was no longer one of the Immortal's soldiers."

Nauta felt hands, careful and with more digits than a hand might possess, upon his shoulders. Gently he was guided from the rippling of the stone around him, deeper and deeper still. Above him he could feel the confusion and rage echoing, the PrisonKeep seeking its prey. Deftly, the creature that his grandfather had become slipped him away. "He knew, of course, one cannot simply pull the wool over the eyes of a god." He said the word in a laugh, a crow. "He let me come. Tyrant. How better to punish a wayward servant than by welcoming him with open arms, wide enough to hide the dagger in one hand." They drifted, the two of them, and Nauta came to realize that the shape of his Grandfather was not Aukari. There were too many fingers, arms, the way he moved like a centipede scurrying through the dirt. Nauta considered trying to say something but thought better of it. There was no telling what might happen to him if he curried any disfavor now, so deep and gone in this stone-like dungeon. "For a small time I was with my son, my mate, my sister...I thought I could slip back unnoticed and resume my life, content to slide like a cog back into the machine of Sirothelle...if it meant being with THEM. But..."

They stopped, suddenly. Nauta felt four arms wrap protectively around him as something stirred the liquid around him. Something immense was slowly drifting up towards them, pushing unseeing through the dark. "Faldrun brought me back for the information. The report, the bottom line of the Aukari occult. Success, by any means, and to the victor go the spoils." There was no humor in the laugh that followed and suddenly Nauta was flung, headlong, down and sideways, pushing out a stone wall to gasp in an angled hallway. Sputtering, he slid his fingers across his skin, noting no discoloration and no flecks of stone therein. Up went his eyes to the stone wall, unmarred save for the perfect likeness of an old face protruding. No others reached out for him, no arms, no voice that echoed through the corridor. A clatter. His eyes were drawn to a stone knife that slipped out of the smooth wall and dropped, spinning on the floor. "To Faldrun go all Aukari accomplishments, boy. No matter your mettle, no matter your power, you were unlucky to be born of the fire and we ALL must return to his likeness in time. Well...save...some."

The face pushed forward from the stone, and a long graceful arm followed, indicating the blade, "You chose, did you not? My freedom and in return I will seek my son and speak him the truth of what Faldrun did to me, how he rewarded my fealty. I will explain that he may know, and allow him to decide his own truth." The hallway shook with a distant roar, something, somewhere, was furious. The old face seemed to turn, looking down one of the illogical halls before turning sharply. "We haven't the time. I have brought you as far as I can, but the rest is yours." It angled its long arm to point upward and Nauta followed the path to a distant door, the one he had entered, several stories above them. The halls echoed again and shook, he could see the shapes of faces beginning to press through the grey on the far end, growing closer. "Gilgarod hungers and does not relinquish its prizes easily. Take the knife, cut your belly open so that I may stow away within you. It seems we may need my gift after all, and I will not be thrown back into this prison by some godwhelp traveler once you escape. Use the charm granted to you and climb to our escape. Should PrisonKeep get hold of you again, not even my powers will keep you from its maw. Now. Now. HURRY."

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Vivian's room: ForgeHeart

Shiryu.

The blade gleamed in the embers of the forge, clean and burnished. Perfect of balance, sharp of edge, the blade had no equal Vivian had ever laid eyes upon. Purged of her own past, the blood and treachery of a failed rebellion and the ruin that was born from that shame. The ashes of Warrick blown off her to reveal something deeper beneath. Had not the Seven bested the sea and this wild land to settle? What were they but their names and the hardiness of heroes that would not bend? Vivian knew her writ, the Scripture of the Seven and their sacred creed. Though blood had thinned and values brittle when tempered against ages, she would not be swallowed by the weakness of the aristocracy. No. Beneath it beat a heart forged of sorrow and determination. Shiryu.

She had forged her name anew.

"Hail, Warrick," The Forgemaster spoke, its voice booming thunder in the amphitheater of steel. "No." It corrected itself, amused, "Shiryu now, is it not?" The blade hummed in her grasp, as though answering the giant, and it beheld them both in its white-pyre eyes, ever burning. "A blade of insecurity, fear, failure, bound with determination, renewal, rebirth.. A fearsome weapon indeed." It leaned over her, lowering its many hundreds of segmented arms. At first, Vivian considered whether she wanted to hand the blade over. No other weapon had felt so at home in her hands, so right. The grip neatly contoured her own palm and the blade itself seemed reticent to leave. Still, she surrendered it to the creature as it delicately plucked up the weapon and passed it up from hand to hand till at last it was lifted but feet from the fire that served as its eyes. "A sword. The tool of a solider, a life-taker. You mean to build a house with this?" Laughter rolled from the cavern of its chest, like hammer on anvil, "Nay, child, your bloodlust betrays you." Swinging the blade up and down it sang, cutting the air with a sweet snarl. "This blade hungers for conquest, for honor. Your failure tarnishes your past and sours your future."

Without warning, it dropped the blade. Like a silver arrow, the weapon plummeted toward the iron floor before being deftly caught in one of the Forgemaster's hands. Before Vivian could dodge, it thrust the blade forward and caught her just beneath the breast, sliding into her ribs. The noble drew in her breath sharply, expecting the icy cold, the blistering heat, or the agony but none came. Instead there was only an arresting sensation, a drawing, like thread being pulled taut. Out the blade slid from her breast, wet-bright with her own blood it shimmered. The Forgemaster quenched the blade in water and held it aloft again, the dull grey of its steel before now tinged copper-red. "Now," It said to her, "Now it is done."

Vivian dropped to a knee, her breath whistling through clenched teeth. No wound remained where the sword had entered, but her clothes were neatly torn as though a blade had entered. Her hand grasped for the wet blood, the torrent she knew should follow, but found naught but unmarred flesh beneath.

"You are Warrick no more, child." The armored giant looked down at her, many hands gliding along her blade. "Your Warrick blood has finished the forge." She felt weak, weary, as though her limbs were weighted down. "What shall the Shiryu blood be of, I wonder?"

Driving the blade down it cut through the iron floor easily, straight and quivering before Vivian.

"You have done as I've asked and the Forge's boon is yours. You may take what you have forged or any other treasure from this armory." All the hundred-hundred arms spread wide, and the forge blossomed to sudden fiery life, bathing the weapons and objects forged of endless, tireless years, in orange-red brilliance. Vivian blinked hard, trying to remain focused as the room tilted and spun around her. The Forgemaster loomed overhead, somehow smug despite a lack of discernible emotions on its visor. The sword quivered before her, brighter still than all the others, but perhaps that was because it almost shone with the glimmer of her own blood...her noble blood, her Warrick blood. Beyond, the anvil, crystalline and bright, continued to bathe the room in its fiery brilliance...in and out like a beating heart. Marvelous weapons, some Vivian had never seen, festooned the walls and hung in racks throughout the immense armory. Full armor for creatures thrice her size and sets she might imagine fashioning a doll with, lay open in display.

It was only in her initial analysis did Vivian notice the doors. How small they were compared to the ForgeMaster, certainly too small for such an immense creature to step through. It brought her eyes away from the flame-filled helm and down the cavernous chest. Both the guardian's feet were melted into the floor, as though its steel boot was sealed with immense heat into the iron of the cavern itself.

Not Forge Master then, but Forge Slave.

Bright beat the anvil, bright shone the weapons, bright shone the single sword planted at Vivian's feet.

"Choose a prize and return," The Forgemaster said, deep and foreboding, "Beware. What you leave may find its way back to you, though in whose hands...I wonder."

The key in Vivian's hand hummed, sung to life by the sound of the Forge. Taking it, she felt the pull toward the ForgeMaster's hammer held aloft in one gauntleted hand. On closer inspection, the head of the great hammer was, in fact, a seamless steel chest, affixed by chains to the end of its long handle. Here, the key seemed to say, This is what I am to open, this is what I was created to be. Taking a step forward, Vivian opened her mouth to speak but was cut short by the chime of steel. The sword she crafted, Shiryu, it hummed and vibrated, speaking in a tongue too old for mortals...a language of stone, of craft, of metal and toil. She knew without knowing the words that it desired to return with her. Forged of so much, this child of steel demanded her attention. Had she forged it only to abandon it?

The ForgeMaster watched and the hall was deathly silent.

Only Vivian's breathing, and the choice that lay before her.

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Tio's room: The Sepulcher of the Sacrifice


As the charm landed, clicking, between the ribcage, it exploded. Bright colors and long raven feathers shifted and spun within the bones of the long buried skeleton. Where the feathers fastened, they became unblemished skin, weaving a corpse of the bones before Tio's eyes. Beneath his feet, the skull offered only a weary sigh as the dust from the reconstitution buried it completely. The mage's spark reveled in this wild transformation, watching what was nothing embraced with life and born again from the ruin of its end. In the end, Necromancy only made mockeries of what life once was. To puppet and act as though life had not yet sifted from bones or drifted from misty eyes. This? This was something else entirely. It was beyond Necromancy, and the Spark within Tio wanted it.

Wanted to devour it all.

He, for it was a he, Tio could see that now, rose from the bone-shrouded earth on newly minted skin. Dark, dusty as the old roads, long black hair crossed and crossed again in intricate knots from a single line down the strange's otherwise bald head. Tattoos spiderwebbed across the skin there, indeed, drew across the surface of his naked body like an intricate map. Each was connected, each dotted, stricken, or starred in some strange language. The tattoos ended at his twists and ankles, leaving his hands and feet unblemished and new. Taller than Tio, almost seven feet, he towered among the death and shadows here. Something of the strange reminded Tio of what he'd read about the Hotlands, sun-baked people hardy of mind and body and blistered rugged by the elements. No longer a whisper, a throaty roar of laughter bellowed into that quiet place of solemn graves and echoed out across that dead world. "AH!" He snarled the word, relishing the shape of it in his cheeks, his lips, his flesh, "Is this what this Sepulcher smells like? How awful! How sensational." Eyes like pools of ink fixed on the necromancer and the stranger ran a hand across the thick black beard that had flared out from his chin. Slowly, one hand made its way down to his chest, over where his heart would beat. Tio noted the momentary flash of fury there, but it was gone in an instant and the naked giant turned. "We walk, necromancer," He started forward, long strides, "You will see many treasures among the dead but be not so foolish as to take them." Turning his head back, the stranger grinned ruefully, "The dead are possessive of their treasures."

Tio jogged forward to keep pace with the stranger. Part of him wondered if he shouldn't offer some manner of clothing, but once-skeleton seemed unconcerned with the cold or his bare flesh. As the silence passed between them, finally Tio spoke up, his voice surprisingly loud among the footsteps. "What..." Here he paused, and then again, quieter, "What shall I call you?"

"Must we bandy names, sorcerer?"

"You know mine, and I would know yours in return."

"The dead knew your name before you came, Tio, who would sit upon the heavens. Your folly and dreams have long been known to Gilgarod."

Tio looked up at the cavernous ceiling above them, the graves around, "What is Gilgarod, exactly? Cassion said it was the place where the dreams of conquerors and kings go to die. But it feels so much more...real, than a dream."

"What would you know of dreams, Yludih?" His guide chuckled, "But your question only emphasizes your inexperience in Emea. All is real here and all is false. Your world is one of hard truths and rigid reality, but there are no such restrictions here. Gilgarod is a creature, a place, and an idea all at once. Perhaps, long ago, it was but the name of a single Kingdom...the first Kingdom, some would say. In its world it spanned from shore to shore and devoured all, regardless of loyalty or creed. When it fell, the world fell with it, but even the shadow of that idea was too strong to remain forgotten. It needed not the living to sustain it and when it found a place to sun itself, to wait and hunt, it drew to it all the smaller dreams of its like. Kin-caller, kin-slayer, kin-eater. When dreams cannibalize dreams, they can become such things as this."

"So, this is something like a god..." Tio bent down and scraped up some of the dust, rubbing it between his fingers. Certainly he could feel the power here, it resonated.

"Something like a god, yes," the not-skeleton confirmed, "Like those who sent you here, just creatures beyond your limited laws."

"My limited laws? What, then, does that make you?"

He laughed, loud but somehow without joy, "I am prey, ambition devoured before it could properly flower." Holding out his hands to the monuments and graves they passed, he shrugged his wide shoulders, "All of us here, dead in service to something we found greater than ourselves. Idalos was my home too, necromancer, but that was before the Immortals raged in their celestial seats...unmade us with power and fury."

"Unmade?" Tio's eyes were drawn to the gold of many dangling treasures festooned over sagging crypts and stones. Wary of the words, he chose not to touch them.

"In an age before yours." They had crested a hill of bones and looked down on an ancient coliseum. Faded banners, the battle standards of lost empires, hung from each entrance in mottled glory. His guide paused here, taking a deep breath and coughing, cursing as he went to a knee. Tio watched, curious, but did not touch the huge man. He could see where the skin had already started to lose its color, to begin to flake and thin. "No time, I suppose." He rose, starting down the hill of bones with Tio at his side. Before the necromancer could ask, he was already explaining. "Trinkets. Delroth rewarded you with trinkets, nothing more. They mend living flesh well enough and I can make use of their power well enough for now, but they have nothing to repair. One cannot breathe life to the long dead, but I need not tell a necromancer that."

"Will it be enough, then?" Tio asked him, slipping a hand around another of the charms, debating, "I have an additional-"

"Our bargain is our bargain." The tattooed giant stopped at the stairs of the coliseum and sat. Already dark bruises had begun to overtake the black of his scars and his muscles were wasting to dust and rot. It was fascinating, honestly, as Tio had only seen such advanced decay through use of his own necromantic powers before. "Your prize is beyond, but I will not disgrace myself by attempting to go farther." He chuckled, "I had hoped...but...ah, I suppose even this journey was invigorating enough to pass the time."

Tio considered, but only a moment, and then he stepped forward and wrapped the giant's arm around his own shoulder. The smell of the rotting skin was pungent, but he was hardly a necromancer if he could not tolerate this. Gritting his teeth, Tio heaved the guide to his feet and started forward again, passing under the banners toward the amphitheater. "You said," He huffed, "You said Cassion would not come here. That he envied our mortality. What did you mean?"

"Ah, the conundrum of eternity." They limped past defaced monuments of kings and warriors, all now worn away to obscurity with time, moving slowly toward the center of the building. "I offer you no greater example than your hated and beloved Immortals. Centuries, millennia, time means nothing to the ageless. Mortal men, you consider your lifespan a weakness..as do most. But it is only because of our short existence that we strive so magnificently to weave wonders from dust. Without death, without that unconquerable opponent, we languish and rot. I and the others here do not die, and our minds are never gone, but we languish here in eternity. Wars, conquest, it is all meaningless to the eternal. So what if you sit on the Immortal's throne, necromancer? What peace will that bring you? Live gloriously. Die gloriously. Step into the wonders of Emea to tackle challenges anew. Seek not that trap of a blessing. Immortality. Seek only to leave this world when your goals are complete. The Immortals? They are nothing so powerful. Even their namesake is an illusion."

"What?" Tio stopped, the weight of the disintegrating guide too much for him to bare. He lay the creature against one of the support columns at the mouth of the coliseum. By now, most of the flesh was sifting away to reveal the pale white of bone once more. His guide fixed him with a knowing gaze, a curious one. "Their namesake...what about it?"

"Have you never heard the tale of Daia?" black eyes flashed, "Immortal, beloved, slain by mortal hands."

"Slain?" Tio knelt closer, "Slain how?"

"Ah, necromancer, do I detect some interest? Perhaps...ah, but perhaps we can be aligned after all. Go down and claim your prize, as I promised. I have another offer for you. One I think you might be interested in hearing."

Tio leaned in closer as the skeleton whispered his bargain. In those halls of death, one could almost hear the sound of the necromancer's smile.


The Coliseum was empty. A magnificent edifice, once grand battles had been fought upon the sand for the glory of nameless lords and ladies. Now only the rusted remains of weapons, armor, and bleached bone remained. At first, Tio faltered, unsure, but the bone key in his hand resonated, the tiny skull chattering suddenly as though applauding with its tombstone teeth. In the center of the coliseum a slate grey metal chest rose slowly from the dust and bone around it. Wind shrieked into the coliseum, twisting up the bone shards, rusted armor, and weapons, twisting and reforming them. Ancient gladiators, pallid soldiers, roared soundlessly as they returned to creaking animation. Again, it was not quite necromancy, but not so different either. These bones, the ones that remained (for, of course, the dead were everywhere here) were not like the bones of the Guide. These had no soul upon them and were free for necromancy to use, manipulate, and dance. Twelve of the bone soldiers advanced on Tio as a tall black shade rose in the balcony where a King might watch. Soundless, only a silhouette, it watched.

And the wind hissed its fleshless applause.

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Arlo's room, The Halls of Exult

Silence.

In the wake of his answer, the courtyard of Exult was wordless, breathless.

Arlo took a hesitant step toward the throne, all under the watchful eyes of the thronged masses and the flawed golems. Had he spoken correctly? No. That wasn't it. It was not a question of correct, but what sort of a King he would be. Arlo had answered from his heart, his soul, his experience. Slowly he walked past the frozen guards, the people that parted before him. The throne, wild and wondrous, seemed to call him. In order to claim his prize, the item Cassion had called him to retrieve, he had to sit in the throne and take that privilege. The expectant faces of the many watched him, baited, as he ascended the cracked stairs and turned to look out at the courtyard. The stone struggled to banish the illusion of finery that was reflected back at him, empty and full, decadent and rotting. It was almost as though both realities were true and neither.

Arlo sat and the trumpets sounded in celebration. The people cheered and thronged closer. Each one of the mighty obsidian statues saluted, overturning the gilded cobblestones to reveal wonders they held proffered in both hands. Swords that swirled with clouds of purples and greens, a regal cloak that twisted as though alive, hardening and softening as though in some primitive communication. Small dancing golden statues, pale birds of inset pearls that sang with such heart achingly beautiful voices, and dozens of others. The people dared not touch these wonders, as they were for the King and the King alone. In Arlo's hand, his key resonated, drawing his attention to one servant who offered only a small wooden box. It was a rich reddish hue, carved with the designs of dragons that wheeled and danced across a dark sky and sported a single lock, one Arlo instinctively knew would fit his key.

Yes, my King, came the voice of the servant, You may choose one of these prizes for yourself. Gilgarod is your treasury and Gilgarod treasures the regal.

The people thronged forward, many mouthed, gibbering woes and desires, in tongues too many to count.

A King to stand among his people. A King who is never far from his subject's minds. A kind King. A benevolent King. Such beautiful words, your Majesty.

Arlo began to stand, knowing he needed to take the chest from the offered palms, but found he could not. Nothing held him, no magic or material wrapped around his body, but he found he could not command his body to move from the throne. An immeasurable exhaustion fell over him while, to his horror, he could see the color drain from his own hands as the throne devoured his vitality. In tandem, the people thronged in the courtyard seemed to grow stronger, their images more clear. He could hear them now, louder, as bodies began to break into the reality of glimmering gold he had entered. They cheered, they sang his name, but each haggard face renewed was more life drained from Arlo.

A Kingdom is a living being. Kind Kings live short lives, My lord, as they give all they have to their people. See how your kingdom suffers? You said yourself, did you not? That you should remember you bleed the same as they.

Arlo struggled in the throne, but found his body would still not heed his commands. Exhaustion settled on him like an inexorable weight, slowly crushing more and more of his life from his body. The people continued to swell, countless masses crowding to drink of his life, of his benevolence, and the courtyard's rust and ruin seemed to mend and brighten around him. One servant, the one offering the box, stood from where it knelt and approached the throne, kneeling and offering the chest to him.

Gilgarod hungers. The golem said solemnly, stepping around its partner to bow deeply to Arlo, Your futures, your life, your Majesty, it has been so long since we have had visitors to these glorious halls. But it is in the nature of a King to choose, is it not? May I present his Lordship with alternatives?

As the golem spoke it seemed to become more and more human, a sardonic edge to its voice echoing in his head. In the faceted eyes of the golem, Arlo could now see reflected the other travelers. Nauta, struggling to escape walls that swam with faces and arms seeking to drag him down, Vivian surrounded by gleaming weapons and an immense being of iron and cold, white fire, and Tio menaced by ranks of skeletal guardians approaching him in a coliseum.

Gilgarod hungers for one to hold the throne, my Lord, but it need not be one of your august personage. Choose a sacrifice for your Kingdom, as all Kings must. Exercise your right as Sovereign to feed your people the life of an interloper, seeking your own defeat in your Kingdom. Do so and you will be released from your obligation and may take your chosen prize with you. Choose none and release yourself, but forsake your birthright and suffer the consequences. The throne will hold only a KIng or the sacrifice of the King, and I beg of my Lord to choose quickly, before there is too little of him to make the choice.

Waves of exhaustion wracked Arlo's body and his breath came to him rasping. He could feel his vitality literally being clawed out of him. There knelt the golem with his prize and the one bowing before him still angling its head up, so that Arlo might view the struggles of the others within. Beyond, the door he had come through, still open to the hall of paintings and the way back to where Cassion waited.

The key sang in his grasp, longing to open the box it had been made for

And the trumpets sounded again, joyous and cold.

!

Message from: Plague

Roit roit. So. Vivian: Choice is fairly straight forward for you. You may choose ONE thing to leave this room with. I apologize that I didn’t leave you AS much to work with as some of the others, but you made such a fine sword I saw no reason to add additional challenges. You instinctively know you must present the box and key to Cassion without opening them. ((You may post just short of returning to Cassion)) Tio: You have a PM sir, with further instructions. As for where I left you, feel free to be an aswesome necromancer and lay claim to that box. The key is your way out (should you not have a guide to lead you back), and you will instinctively know that you must present the box and the key to Cassion. ((You may post just short of returning to Cassion’s room)) Nauta: Best climb, buddy. Take the deal or don’t, but it may be time for your biggifying charm to get out of here. Make it suitably cinematic as PrisonKeep does desire to claim you. Stop short of stepping out the door though. You’re the only one leaving without the prize (as you chose to instead save your Grandfather) Keep that key on you, though. If you lose it, PrisonKeep can change the halls and laws of them on you as it wishes. Arlo: I would like you to post first. Should you choose one of the characters, I will need that knowledge for my next post. If you choose one of them, you will be released from the throne and can take the box. Should you choose none of them and also not yourself, you will be released from the throne and may claim the box by force (but there most certainly will be consequences later for forgoing your 'birthright'. You will additionally need to cinematically battle your way back to the hall to make your way back to Cassion’s room. The coin you were tossed by Jesnine can be used in this circumstance to temporarily cover you with a silver armor that will protect you from the massive blows of the golems as you make your way back to the door. This cannot take TOO much damage, so utilize it appropriately. If you choose to keep it (realistically on your escape), it will have a dream effect for later times. Just a note here guys, there is a final part of this test from Cassion. You CAN leave here without the ‘prize’ and theoretically still win. I can’t explain how at the moment, but those that DO leave with the prize they came for will have an advantage in the final part of this quest. For those of you in fights n such, this is the time to break out your other godboons (where appropriate). I’m free to answer any questions you want, just shoot me a PM.

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[Arlo Creede]

Arlo hadn't doubted that there'd be more to all this than a simple answer provided in response to a simple question. If that was all, then all this pageantry, all the illusions and this sense of anticipation would have been wasted on him. He couldn't have given the same back in response after all, if Cassion had asked him directly. But still, there in the breathless silence that lingered after he'd spoken, he hadn't exactly planned on ending up on the throne. In fact the sort of king he'd just described, probably wouldn't have much use for one. Or at least he wouldn't spend much time in it. But there he was nonetheless. The thing had called to him, no question but he couldn't have refused to walk through the throng to get there, past all the expectant faces. But he sensed that if he was going to claim what he'd come for, he'd be required to set himself in the throne first. It didn't seem to suit, or want to suit, the sort of ruler he'd described.

Trumpets, cheering, pressing crowds. Those were the sorts of things to be expected in this scenario. He couldn't say it was a very comfortable seat though. Then came the gifts. Riches, rarities...and whatnot. And even under these circumstances he thanked them all, but touched none of the offerings yet. He'd never forgotten why he was here though, that this was a competition, a game of sorts, and at the end of the trial, a grand dream where the consequences paid limited themselves to the dream itself. That in so many words was exactly what Cassion had told him, last time around. He'd even come close to dying in that sense, and the Immortal in question had put him back to rights. But it was the key he'd been given that brought his focus completely back round. Thrumming as if it was alive and seeking, in response to the box offered up, right underneath his nose.

That was the box, the thing that he wanted and had the potential to hold the other key that he was after. And yet he was unable to stand, step down and get it. Fatigue and physical weakness had become concepts he wasn't particularly familiar with any more. Cassion's blessing had as good as ensured it to a fair degree. It was disconcerting to say the least. "Unkind kings may live longer," he responded to the golem. "But kind ones are remembered longer and better for the good that they did and left behind." Presumably. But then he was presented with a number of choices by a thing that suddenly seemed more human than mechanical.

He saw the others caught up in their own challenges, heard his choices and considered. Firstly, a little more focus, mental and physical wherewithal was in order, and moving as best he could, he used the gift that Ilaren had given him. Strength and endurance. Things ought seem much clearer after that. If he continued to stay where he was, he'd sacrificed his own chance of coming out of it at the top. There was no guarantee of course that his box held the key. But he could only go forward assuming it did. He could get up off the throne, reject the whole business, grab the box and fight his way out. But the consequences of that might not be to his liking.

Then? Well Arlo smiled a little. This was a competition after all. They four were in competition with each other. They were the ones seeking his defeat, just as the roles were neatly reversed. Would any of them have chosen him under the same circumstances in order to gain the advantage? Undoubtedly they would. No real harm done really once this was over. So which one? He only knew one of them more than in passing, here in Emea. But the choice turned out to be very easy. Who was it that had been so insistent on wanting to trade doors? Whose door had he wanted most? Who was it that had thought that the way Arlo was going would suit them better and had been starstruck by all the finery of the golden door?

And after all, who might appreciate the wonderful irony of this choice better than anyone else would, and didn't want to be devoured by skeletons anyway? "Him," he said, pointing at the vision of the coliseum and the ranks of skeletons. "I choose Tio to replace me." That said and his choice made, Arlo stood up from the throne, stepped down and took the box. Tio was going to love a chance to be king, he thought.

[Tio Silver]

Tio was filled with a mixture of fear and awe as the power of Delroth's charm was absorbed, summoning a whirlwind of feathers that restored flesh to the withered form of the skeleton. This type of magic was unlike anything he'd ever seen before; it was ancient, primal, and more potent than anything he'd ever dreamed was possible. Some part of it felt like necromancy, but at the same time it was so far removed as to be almost its complete opposite. Like a reflection on the water, he mused to himself; both the same and yet entirely reversed all at once. Was it possible to learn this power? His spark hungered to devour it, and Tio also could not help but be filled with the desire to claim it for his own. Was this the way to achieve the immortality he'd been searching for for so long? If he too could learn the art of resurrecting himself after death then all of eternity would be his to enjoy!

Soon the whirlwind died down into nothing, and where once the skeleton had lay now stood a tall, powerfully built man decorated with tattoos of a forgotten language from head to toe. For a short while the man reveled in the strength returned to his body, and then instructed Tio to follow him and led the way through the endless graveyard, walking across the desert of dust with the surety of a native. As they walked the two of them spoke, and Tio found himself taking a liking to this stranger. There was wisdom to his words, and a feeling of strength of will that clung to him like a familiar cloak. This, he felt, was someone who knew what it meant to wield power, not according to some some vague notions of good or evil but according to genuine experience in leadership.

The subjects of their conversation also proved to be very enlightening. First of all was the revelation that the dead stuck in this realm all knew who he was already, as his ambitions were known to Gilgarod. Somehow he doubted that just anyone could catch the attention of a dimension of kings and conquerors, and Cassion had mentioned that Gilgarod encompassed not just the dreams of past empires, but empires that had not yet risen. Perhaps his ambitions might just become a reality after all? Perhaps one of those empires yet to rise would have him seated as its king?

Second was the explanation that Gilgarod was more than just a location. Here in Emea dreams were alive, and the dream of the real city of Gilgarod was so powerful that even when its physical counterpart fell Gilgarod remained in Emea, devouring other kingdoms until it grew into this creature. Tio would be lying if he said he understood how exactly that worked, but perhaps that was the point? A realm unlimited by reality could never be understood.

Third was his mysterious guide's opinion on immortality; namely that it was better to have a finite lifespan in which one remained motivated to achieve their dreams, rather than an infinite one in which one became apathetic without the threat of death to motivate them. Tio had never thought about it from that perspective before, and while there was certainly a good point to be made there he wasn't sure he could quite agree with it. The world was full of wonders, and the future continued to bring even more of them every day. Surely eternal life was still a gift as long as you never forgot how to keep plowing forwards through the ages towards your ambitions? If you made something other than death your enemy and devoted yourself to its downfall then there would always be something to keep you going.

Yet it was the fourth and final revelation that shook Tio the most; the one that would have made his blood run cold in his veins had he been a creature of flesh and bone. This was the tale of Daia, the Immortal whose name he'd only heard associated with the strange spiritual phenomenon that occurred on his birth-trial, and the offer his guide whispered in his ear that followed it. The price asked of him was a terrible one, something that filled his heart with a black dread that he could almost physically feel weighing him down, and in the arcs before he became a necromancer Tio would have never even considered accepting it. But he was a different man now: he had tasted strength no mortal was ever meant to taste, and now that he'd grown accustomed to it he could no longer ignore his hunger for something even stronger. It was possible, likely even, that he was being unbelievably foolish right now; after all his guide could be tricking him, and even if he wasn't the dark road he was offering to help him walk down could make him one of the most despised beings in existence! Yet on the other hand if the guide was telling the truth and Tio was able to survive the dark road everything he'd ever wanted, and more, could be his! How many times was such an opportunity given to mortals? Could he really live out the rest of his days having turned it down and not spend every waking moment wondering what sort of greatness he could have achieved had he just had a bit more courage? What was the price of a missed opportunity?

As he was considered his options the skeleton key began to chatter in his grasp again, and from the middle of the coliseum they'd arrived at a grey metal chest rose up from the ground as if to answer it. But the chest did not rise up alone, for the shrieking winds gathered up the dust, bones and ruined gear of the fallen gladiators that littered its floor, creating twelve marrow soldiers to come to the chest's defense. So he had to fight his way to the prize did he? Well that was fine, these enemies had no soul still bound to their bones as his guide had which meant his necromancy would be able to wrest dominion over them. It would be tough, but he could do this.

His blade would do no good against fleshless foes, and so Tio stepped forth into the arena unarmed, digging deep within his soul and feeding the spark of necromancy within his ether. Nebiros flared to life, filling him with its power, and the spiraling black pattern of his witchmark appeared underneath his eye as Tio settled into a fighting stance. He reached out with his right hand towards the four closest marrows, directing his spark to take command of them, and smirked to himself as intangible chains of ether wrapped around the soldiers and bound them to his will. Each of the four turned about face and attacked an enemy thrall, leaving just four of the original twelve for Tio to concern himself with.

Taking the luminescent tear that Ufrek had rewarded him with earlier, Tio consumed the magical item and let out a cry of exhilaration as raw strength unlike anything he'd ever known before rushed through his limbs. He jumped, unnaturally powerful legs propelling him high into the sky, and smashed straight down onto the first thrall like a gorilla, scattering the bones into pieces. What good was rusty armor against a strength that could drag a whale across a beach? They might as well have been wearing paper! He took the mace held by the crushed marrow and threw it at another with such force that it took its legs clean off!

The third marrow came swinging at him with a hand-and-a-half sword, and while his strength may have been increased tenfold at the moment Tio didn't want to risk testing if that meant his body had become ten times as tough as well. He jumped backwards and focused on evading, ducking and rolling as the gladiator continued an onslaught of wide attacks, and waited for an opening that was sure to appear eventually. Yet the gladiator was surprisingly skilled in its unhesitating ruthlessness, and no such opening presented itself that he had the skill to exploit. He needed to make his own. Tio slapped the ground, kicking up a literal wave of dust that washed over the marrow. He'd intended it to just blind the gladiator, but the sheer volume of the dust and the force behind it actually knocked it off its feet. Wow, this tear was seriously powerful stuff! Seeing his window he pounced forwards and stomped down on the thrall's skull, crushing it to tiny pieces.

For a moment Tio was distracted as he reveled in his strength, and he let his guard slip for just a moment. He looked up to the shade sitting in the king's stand and flipped him off, a wide, wolfish grin spread across his face, but his distraction cost him. A sharp pain erupted in his side, and as Tio yelled in pain he looked down to find the thrall he'd thrown the mace at earlier, the one that'd had its legs smashed off, had dragged itself along with its hands and stabbed him with a dagger. A sharp kick sent its skull flying off into the distance, but the damage was already dealt.

"Balls..." Tio muttered to himself, grabbing another of his Delroth charms and crushing it over the wound. A gust of wind, different from the deathly chill that reigned in this graveyard world, washed across it, and the wound closed itself up so that not even a scar remained. Elsewhere the battles between the rest of the skeletons drew to their own conclusions, with two of the ones he'd stolen besting their opponents and the other two getting smashed back into the dust they'd been raised from. These final four engaged in a 2-versus-2 battle, swinging wildly at each other with worn out weapons, and Tio took manual control of his two remaining troops and puppeteered them through the fight. With his rational mind guiding them his thralls worked together, watching each others backs and striking in unison in a way that their foes could not. One tripped an enemy to the ground while it was busy blocking the other's stirke and sent it crashing to the ground, then smashed its body to bits with a couple of heavy hammer blows. Then together the duo overwhelmed the last remained thrall with a flurry of strikes it didn't have the speed to match, and bit by bit hacked bone after bone away until it simply fell apart, unable to stand with what little parts of it remained.

As a last precaution Tio walked fowards, took the skulls of his two thralls in his hands and crushed them, destroying his own servants so that they wouldn't turn against him when his power ran out. The last of the twelve had been defeated, and as the unnatural strength started to ebb out of his body and the witchmark faded from beneath his eye Tio strode to the center of the coliseum and collected his prize: the grey metal chest. So this was it then? The contents of this box were what Cassion had desired so greatly? Once again Tio could not help but wonder what could be inside that had caused the Immortals to go to such lengths to obtain it. Whatever it was it had better be worth all the trouble so many people had gone through to get it.

And with that distraction dealt with at last Tio turned his mind back to his previous train of thought: the guide's offer. Strangely enough the sense of victory that came with winning the fight did wonders to clear his head of any doubts, and Tio felt certain he knew what choice he had to make. Clutching the chest under one arm he walked back to his fast-fading new friend, and held out his free hand towards him.

"You say you would make a student of me, and a student I will happily be. I'll accept you offer, but I ask of you to not just end our partnership there. Teach me everything: this knowledge you have promised me, that power of yours that can trade with life and keep souls bound to bones, and the wisdom experience has taught you on how to be a king. Do this for me and I'll find more things to repay you with. Show me how to reach my ambition and I'll share the rewards with you; this I promise."

He knelt down in front of him, drew his cutlass sightly from its sheath and ran the flat of his palm across it to make a long, thin cut. He held out his hand once again, and looked the decaying king straight in his eyes.

"By ancient pact I invoke your name, Gholiog. Hear me, Oh Verse, and by thy Lantern lend power to my promise. Half my trials remaining, by count of Fate, I offer to the one known as Avacer Toli, in exchange for teachings ancient and forgotten. Look upon us with Favor, Oh Verse, till your time returns and usurpers dust, as all must become!"

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[Vivian Shiryu]

The blade Vivian had forged was, in a word, perfect. She had never seen it's equal, it was far beyond anything she could ever have made were this a typical forging. It felt more at home in her hands than any weapon she had ever held in her life. Part of her didn't want to give it to the forgemaster, but in the end, she handed over the blade. Only for him to stab her in the chest with the blade.

Vivian had been injured in battle before, but this was a new sensation. This didn't feel like a battle wound, it felt like something had been pulled tight. When the forgemaster pulled the blade out, she felt the hole in her clothes, looking for the wound he had made. There was none, though her clothes were torn from the blade. She was tired though, but she looked up when he asked what the Shiryu blood would be made of. "Stronger stuff, if I have aught to say about it." she said, her tone weary, but determined. She watched as he thrust the sword into the ground before her, then listened quietly as he told her that she could lay claim to any of the treasures of his forge.

The treasures of the Forgeheart were beautiful and wondrous, bathed in the light of the great forge. She noticed the doors as well, how they would fit her but not her host. Looking down, she saw that he was trapped, a slave to the forge. Despite that, she could not but respect his master of his craft, whether by choice or by force, he was still a forgemaster. She heard what he said about what she left finding it's way back to her, and the implied threat was clear in her mind. However, before she could choose, the key Cassion had given her thrummed in her hand, wanting to pull her to the head of the great hammer, which she now saw was a chest.

On instinct, she took a step towards the chest, but then her sword thrummed behind her, calling to her. She turned to face it, then looked back at the chest for but a moment. Then she sighed and looked at the key in her hand. "This is key is meant for that chest. But I am not." she said, closing her hand around the key and grabbing her sword, pulling it from the ground. "This is mine. Forged of my weaknesses, bound by my dream and rebirth, tempered by my blood. This is the only thing in this forge that I am worthy to claim, at least as I am now." she said, looking back down at the key in her closed fist. "If I prove myself worthy to open the chest this key belongs to, I'm sure I'll find my way back." she said, smiling slightly. "I can feel it, Cassion is looking for the chest, but I won't be able to bring it to him. Not now, at least." she said, before laughing. "Still, he wanted a story. I think he'll enjoy the tale of this forging." she said, holding up the sword, before she started walking towards the exit.

Pausing at the door, she turned back to face the forgemaster again. "You've been a most gracious host. I thank you for the opportunity to craft in your forge." she said, bowing to the forgemaster. Then she put her hand on the door, ready to return to Cassion, bearing the sword she had forged.

[Nauta F'mos Geey]

An aukari, one from Sirothelle no less, would not have intimated his thoughts the way the stone man had. At least it proved some truth in the idea Teesdat was no longer an aukari. However Nauta's query was also to observe the expression of those thoughts. While not that capable in tradecraft- he would be a member of Sirothelle's celebrated Occult otherwise, Nauta liked to think himself as somewhat perceptive of the attitude others had towards him. Though Teesdat Geey wanted to be free, his lengthy reminiscence did not make him seem overly eager nor only to appease his grandson for the sake of realizing that goal.

He asked the not-man his true goals as the options he offered were confusing but after Teesdat was clear freedom was his endgame and would do right by the Geeys if they succeeded, Nauta did not resist as he was dragged through the stone. Despite the uncomfortable state of confinement, it was quite pleasant; if one could call the trip through PrisonKeep that. The tale of his forebears was a rewarding distraction. He had more questions, details of his father's youth and his grandfather's experience at a post many aukari would kill for but he was too enthralled to interrupt. More questions would have to wait until later.

Also he did not want to distract the stone man in case they took a wrong turn somewhere and he ended up truly lost to PrisonKeep...

With avoiding that possibility in mind, Nauta was also aware enough to pass on any questions of his not-aukari grandfather's condition. Not unless the man brought it up... the alchemist's concern of the changes were the results a study of the new being could give him. His grandfather had been thought dead for so long until just a few bits ago, the man's worldly possessions already distributed among his kin. It was still too soon for Nauta to get used to the idea.

But then there was that. Something Nauta really wanted to ask but could not as he was suddenly smothered and then ejected from the stones. The question drifted away as the aukari's became more concerned with recovering from the strange experience and once he regained his faculties, realized he was indeed out from his imprisonment. Better yet, the losers were no longer after him! Then came the dagger, a curious thing. The alchemist's eyes swept over it and could not really tell what it was about until his grandfather explained it to him.

He gaped at the idea, Teesdat truly had become something other than an aukari if the stone person had forgotten flesh did not do well when cut open. He wanted to protest so the both of them could figure out an alternative but the hungry roar, like Nauta's own Kavelza, indicated the old man was right- there was no more time for anything else.

Curse the elder for forcing this choice on him.

There was no choice really; Nauta had already given up on the prize for a goal more important and Cassion had three other horses in the race. Teesdat Geey only had one thing; family. Unless Nauta was going to get busy back home to spawn a few degenerates of his own and task them with the freedom of their predecessor which he himself failed to secure a few arcs down the line, there was no telling when would be his grandfather's next chance to get free- if any. Committed to denying that fate to a fellow Geey, he set the knife on himself which was repelled by pain Nauta did not want to go through.

Another cry of Gilgarod echoed through Prisonkeep accompanied by the clamour of the phälrothït eager to please their new master made the aukari finally cry "räùn vür!" before his own skin was split by the cold edge of the stone blade. That was all it took.

With Teesdat safely stashed within him, it was time for their escape but Nauta had something more effective than U'frek's charm. The natural nimbleness of the aukari had children climbing early but nearly two arcs from Sirothelle had gotten Nauta used to another method of attaining greater heights. Enough time passed since he last used it with the rest in Edasha's idyllic pastures that by his count there should be no disruption but the pain to his punctured body which had to weave itself into something more suited to the task. Edasha's stage was not as big a waste after all, he thought.

Nauta may not be used to taking to the air in such a narrow space but then again, it was not like a bat was something as sophisticated as Hajnasis. It was a climb, in a sense, as his body bounced from side to side to ascend into the air. An actual take off would have him focused on getting as high as he could as fast as he could but Nauta was more focused on keeping himself away from the walls. He could hear the phälrothït giving chase but that was not all; the sounds which bounced off the walls allowed him to feel they were only coming closer and closer to where he was.

As far as he was concerned, he only had to leave them behind like the rotten memories they were and he continued his ascent. He was barely halfway up when they reached him and the appendages shot out to capture him. It may not be the Sight Teesdat spoke of but Nauta could hear their presence before they even left the walls. As his hair stood at the approach of Prisonkeep's slaves, it was only a slight adjustment of his wings to get out of the way. More than a few times the stones appendages reached so close his hair bent at the wind they left in their rush but that was it.

It was a lot better than the other times he had to take flight, perhaps he was a natural and his birth as an aukari was all a mistake? He certainly thought so the moment he dodged a strike from below once the slaves wised up. He never felt it that way before. It was strange how efficient he had suddenly become and he grew more confident as he got out of further attempts. The chorus of hunger rang even louder as if they finally realized their attempts to get at him were futile. Things might have been different had he chosen to make himself a bigger target and took the climb up a wall full of enemies.

'Fools' he thought as he left them behind, mirrored, by his grandfather hidden inside of him which came as a surprise. A surprise for both of them actually. Nauta did not know until then but he was assisted by Teesdat with some enhanced sense; a gift only a not-aukari such as himself could bestow for their escape until the aukari chose to claim it for himself and Teesdat; his grandson was familiar enough with hearing the things around him which made it easy for Nauta to use the gift without being overwhelmed. Needless to say their joint abilities worked well to contribute to their escape.

When they finally reached the door, Nauta stopped short of touching it to leave. He was safe for now but there may be another adversary the moment he got through it. Might be good to have some sort of an offering for his failure so he would be returned home, just as the supposedly safe trip into Gilgarod. A brief pause after he called on his "...sadví," he asked in the tone of a professional to cause as he would have had back in Sirothelle instead of the grandson to Teesdat, "shräïs êm ädà äungä konä led në ou'laith. Nëï m'iri'ai vëäs Faldrun jahen pa'íth athísen në."

[Plague]

The Hall of Exult

No sooner had the words slid past his lips than the throne relented. Arlo no longer felt the pressure of the unfed masses leeching from his life, his vitality. Muscles shaking, he slid forward and off the throne onto unsteady feet and took the offered box. United in such proximity with its key, the box sang like the sustained chime of a bell rolling long through a vacant room. Unbidden, Arlo pictured a cat purring in his arms and inspected the box a little closer. To his eyes, even aided by his gift from Edasha, no quality in particular stood out or fell away to reveal something else. Although his natural curiosity compelled him to draw the key to the lock, something else interfered. It was not for Arlo to open this chest, but to present it before his patron deity...as the contest had stipulated.

Once more the courtyard had returned to finery and he watched as five of the tall black golems gently laid their treasures on the floor and sunk into the stone as seamlessly as ice on dark water. His guide remained bowed, turning after Arlo with gemstone eyes that were deliberately crafted curious, perhaps even sly.

A most wise choice, Your Majesty. We will fetch our King for the throne, Long may he reign.

Something in the flat, cold voice of the giant unsettled the storyteller, but Arlo didn't let it slow him. Had he not faced death earlier in the challenges? Was he not assured that such things were impossible in dreams? Even so, he remembered the sensation of the mouths ghosting across his flesh, the endless hunger of the Throne. Was it death that awaited those in its thrall? Arlo's attention drifted back to the box and he clutched it, striding down the stairs and across the courtyard to the long hallway. Music followed him, a fanfare of instruments that swelled and crashed joyously. One King had departed, yes, but they heralded the new King. The new Reign.

Long live the King.

Arlo passed back the way he came, noticing that the pictures on the walls had changed. New portraits of unknown regals lay in equally measured intervals and flanked the massive gold and silver doors that had ushered him into the Hall of Exult. He cast a single glance back down the hallway, wondering, a little, what Tio must be feeling at this moment before finally placing both hands flat against the doors and pushing through.

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PrisonKeep

Nauta spit his exhaustion like a curse and felt along his stomach again for signs of the creature's entry. Here, outside the door that might lead him back to the room with Cassion, he could find nothing but unblemished flesh where he had slid the blade across. The climb had been treacherous and the walls still writhed around him, as though rushes in the face of an oncoming storm. Something rose from the bottom of the halls upward, something unimaginable with stone-grey mottled flesh and teeth like jagged stairs all clashing together.

And all at once there was sound so loud it crippled him, threatened to hurl him back down the way he had climbed. It rattled in his bones and screamed from all angles and he could FEEL a strange otherness within him, reverberating from his chest. Clutching it, Nauta fell to his knees and gasped, suddenly horror-stricken at the 'thing' that rose to meet him. Nauta could not see it, for indeed, PrisonKeep was all around him, but he could hear the creaking of its strange muscles and the power that roiled through its haphazard body. More than that, he could hear the cries of those within it...pushed together like some macabre porridge so close and so thick they may have all truly been of one flesh and many minds. It was a sound he could only describe as nightmare.

"Faldrun bade me travel far, to a place no Aukari had ever set foot." His grandfather's voice echoed in his ears, quieter than the roaring of the thing but loud enough to understand. "A place where he hoped, I believe, to find an edge to use against his brethren in future conflict. The magic I returned with was my scar for trespassing, my sin of hubris turned blessing and tool."

Nauta took in a breath, found that the walls spoke to him in different sounds, echoes he could feel inside him. "A Grand Fracture, Nauta," His grandfather told him coldly, "The grave of a true God."

The words crashed into the young Aukari but louder still was the approaching creature of PrisonKeep. Without time to consider the words or implications, Nauta grasped the door and pushed through.

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ForgeHeart

"Soldier."

Vivian regarded the imprisoned giant, his heatless white-burn eyes and the arms flexing and twitching across his torso. The sword in her hand, Shiryu, the name she had taken for herself, felt warm and right in her grasp. No weapon had ever felt so natural, so much like an extension of herself. Ages ago, or it felt like ages ago, a sergeant named Briggs had tried to teach her the same lesson. Breaks upon Breaks she spent in the hot Rynmere sun, trying to catch and balance a small clay ball. Each time it would bounce from the flat of her sword or pass harmlessly over her swings, the broad-faced man would let out a loud bray of laughter and shake his tangled brown curls. "Nay, Vivian, must you be so hard to teach?" She bit back her words, the torrent of insults and violence barely held at bay within her and set herself again. "Your sword is an extension of your skin, of your hand. If you cannot catch this simple thing, how will you fair in battle?"

"I won't be catching clay balls in battle." Vivian had hissed, surprising herself with the venom she had let slip. Briggs chuckled, nodding appreciatively at her outburst and shrugged, "Any brigand can swing a sword, Vivian. It takes no great talent to make a weapon a weapon. A real master? Ha. A real master can make a blade as sharp as a Gawyne wind or soft as a Venora rose. If you cannot learn that difference, your sword will always wield you, rather than the other way around."

She thought, maybe a little, she understood him now. What wonders would she be able to work outside the battlefield? What stories would this sword accumulate?

"You say you will fill your weakness with stronger stock. Many have passed through my forges, child, and many more will after you. I say this to you now, Shiryu shall be a bloodline like no other." The Forgemaster swung his hammer up and down upon the stone floor, a piercing note of metal ringing out through the grand armory. The key in Vivian's hand bent, twisted, and melted. Bright hot, Vivian swung her arm wildly to throw off the metal but it seeped into her, leaving behind a scar in the curious, uneven shape of a forge hammer. It happened all at once and suddenly, the metal and key were gone. Vivian felt strength surge within her and...something else...the tang of iron in her nostrils. "Your blood will share the resilience of forged metal, your bloodline unique in all of your world. One day, girl, when you have laid your bloody blade aside and your family calls out to be built, you will return and reforge this blade into something a matriarch might wear, a builder might carry."

Vivian reeled backward but kept her balance, staring at the scar and then back at the Forgemaster. Questions. Words formed in her mouth but the lights had already departed the giant's body, as though a great wind had blown them blank from his helm. She swallowed her questions and turned back to the door ahead of her, pushing it and stepping forward into Cassion's room.

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The Sepulcher of Sacrifice

Where Tio's blood dropped, brilliant gems, upon the bones of the man beneath him, the realm began to shake. Power, untamed chords of it roiled off Tio's wound and lashed themselves to the old bones lain against pillar. Flesh stitched itself from nothing, chystalline first, the hue and structured cadence of an Yludih, before it became as flesh again strewn with the strange symbols of his bygone past. Avacer Toli rose strong and tall from where he lay with a rumble of laughter. The necromancer reveled in this strange ritual, the curiosity of it, the power so unlike the limited strength that Delroth's charms had managed. Yes, he could feel a loss within himself...perhaps the claws of his time left on Idalos begin cut in half. Still, that left him more than enough time to catch the secret of immortality and forgo his consequence. Avacer stretched calloused fingers over his bicep, his forearm, lifting his hands up to cradle his face and dance along his skull. "Well sworn, mage," Avacer complimented, cracking his neck. "Sacrifice, boy, sacrifice is a powerful magic no matter who wields it."

"What of my offer?" Tio asked, holding the black box under one arm.

"Ah, my experience for your fealty?" Avacer Toli wheezed laughter, shaking out the dust that had loured for ages. "A fair proposal. But your promises are rather nebulous, are they not?" Tio frowned and opened his mouth to speak but Avacer drew a hand sharply across the air between them, shaking his head. "You intrigue me, necromancer, so perhaps I will allow this gambit to play. I will uphold my end of the bargain and should you see our partnership continue, I will consider appropriate rewards for what the gods would see treasonous."

"Tio." The necromancer stated, flatly, wrapping his hand in some torn fabric. "My name is Tio Silver and I have earned that respect at minimum, Avacer Toli."

"Some bark in your bite," the tattooed giant grinned, "Train that growl, Tio Silver, you will need it, to learn to roar."

Behind them came a quiet sound, stone sliding against stone. Both turned to see the black golems stepping from the other pillars, neatly slipping out with nary a ripple. Tio drew a few steps back, already gathering his overtaxed ether for what he assumed was another assault. Each of the golems was more than eight feet tall, gemstone facet eyes on a blank face. Eerily, they did not move by joint, but as though their onyx skin was just that, a strange gleaming epidermis that flexed and moved like human appendage.

"What-" Tio started to say but Avacer was in front of him, his thick frame shielding Tio from the approaching giants.

"What business has the Throne Knights in the Sepulcher? Nothing for you to elect down here. Return to the Halls of Exult."

Impossible. The voice was not spoken but echoed in Tio's skull. By the way Avacer grimaced, it was in his as well. Our King Arlo has made his declaration. The Crown will be passed to Tio Silver, chosen by my Lord himself to Reign in Gilgarod from this time to the next.

"Damn that fool." Avacer cursed, pushing Tio farther away from the approaching Throne Knights, "I didn't take the storyteller to have the pluck for abdicating."

"Arlo?" Tio drew magic to his hands, feeling the ether waiting to be shaped, "Did he pass this way as well?"

"No." Avacer continued to back and the silent golems followed. Patient. Ever so patient. "Gilgarod is like a heart on a web. Those who belong to it know its intruders. He held the Key of Exult as you Hold the Key of Sepulcher. Your opponent has chosen you to take his place as King of Gilgarod, to languish deathless for an eternity as the starving subjects of this realm feed from your life. To be King is to be prisoner, a hollow station and a curse to hold."

Tio blinked, aghast. Surely, this was only a dream? Surely the danger was not as true? Certainly it had felt different entering this place and there was the gravity of Cassion's words, but surely Arlo couldn't have sentenced him to a fate such as this. While Tio might not put it past Nauta, the Throne Knights were evidence that Arlo just may have been capable of anything to win. Bile rose in the back of Tio's throat and a hot flush of fury warmed his skin. He had not come so far to become food for a metaphysical leech!

Come, ye reticent King, they spoke to him in unison, Feed our kingdom, be our liege.

"No." Avacer gritted his teeth, hard, and spit onto the foot of the nearest Throne Knight. "You will take me in his stead."

Impossible, the main Knight said somberly, You are not our King.

"I am. I hold half this boy's life, a life that was his to give the dead. I am as much him now as he is me. I will sit upon your accursed throne, but the necromancer returns." The Throne Knights stopped, turning to regard each other inscrutibly before turning back to the two of them. Slowly, the lead nodded its head, once, then twice, before they continued to converge. This time, however, the began to surround Avacer.

"Tio Silver." Avacer turned and clasped him on the shoulders, "This Sepulcher is one of Sacrifice and now sated, you may leave. I have not forgotten our bargain, but you will need to return here and free me from this accursed throne...before there is too little of me to make use of. Go, with my blessing, and a secret for the encounter ahead but remember that our fates are tied, forever. You would do well not to leave me to rot in this prison." Before Tio could respond, Avacer leaned in to whisper one last secret in his ear before the Throne Knights were upon him. Gentle, but immensely powerful, they took his arms and legs and, between them, slipped back through the stone pillars as though they had never been.

Avacer was gone and Tio was left alone with the box.

His key chattered loudly, drawing his attention to it and then up across the shadow-strewn coliseum hall to a staircase that had not been there before. It wound up above him, circling toward some interminable end in the void darkness far above. Casting one last look behind him, Tio gripped the box again...and began to climb.

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The Feasting Foyer: Cassion's room

At once they all arrived. Beaten, tired, haunted, or mulling over their experiences. The travel god did not seem to have moved, but the room had turned on them. Instead of departing at his back, they re-entered before him, the table identical but set in the other direction. Cassion had built a fire and a feast lay strewn out, crowding the surface of the great table. The god was casually devouring a chicken leg, crunching through the cartilage and bone without regard. In moments, no shard of it remained.

"Welcome Back, Travelers."

Nauta, bruised, battered and haunted, offered only a sarcastic half-lipped smile. He did not seat himself and partake in the food just yet, his eyes roving around the others to see who would eat first. Tio and Arlo held a box of some sort and Vivian carried a new and magnificent sword. Nauta only looked on the curved dagger with consideration. So, two had succeeded...or was it three? What was it exactly, that the god had wanted in the first place?

Arlo wore a solemn expression, neither jubilant or self-satisfied as he set the box down on the table between a meat pie and a rack of mutton.. He didn't catch the dark fury momentarily flitting across Tio's face before it was gone under a practiced guise of sly indifference. He, too, placed his box beside Cassion in front of a suckling pig, glistening in the firelight. Vivian did not approach the table at first or make to lay her sword on the stable. Absently she rubbed one scarred arm across her side, glancing at Tio just in time to catch the movement of some emotion darker across his face...here and gone as quickly as it was recognized.

"Brave Travelers, Gather Close And Share The Spoils Of Your Labors." Cassion proudly presented the table, "Eat, Enjoy, Drink!"

Arlo looked between his box, Tio's and what the others had brought, and raised a brow curiously. They'd been tasked to collect a key, after all. But he'd believed from the start that nothing was ever completely as it seemed. Especially in Emea. The word key could an analogy for something else that wasn't. "Does one of us have it?" he asked the Immortal.

"Yes," Cassion nodded at Arlo and reached across the table to clap him heartily on the shoulder, almost forcing the storyteller to his knees, "One Of You Has Retrieved What I Desire." He indicates the two chests and then both Nauta and Vivian. "All Grand Games Must End In Stories, Mortals. How Could They Not?" He drew himself upright, a rumble of laughter rolling out to fill the mismatched hall with sound, "You Will Tell Me What You Have Brought. You Will Tell Me Why I Wanted It, What Its Value Is. You Will Do This And Then Open The Chests, Or Present The Object Fully. One Of You Will Be Correct And One Of Your Will Win This Final Challenge."

Tio's hands were white-knuckled on his box and so he relented, letting them raise up gently so he could massage them, passing the skull key from hand to hand in nervous anticipation.

"Come," Cassion bid them, "Do Not Shrink From Challenge Now. Show Me Your Mettle. Prove To Me This Is A Tale Worth Remembering."

!

Message from: Plague

Ok all. So, final challenge. You will describe something you brought back with you from Gilgarod and WHY it is what Cassion is looking for. For Arlo and Tio, when you open your chests, what you have described will be there exactly as you describe it. This is your chance for some creative liberty. In dreams, belief IS reality so your final challenge will be telling a compelling story about the importance of what you fought for, sacrificed for, or took. This could be anything but it MUST be at least one thing from this quest. (Yes, the whole quest, any reward from the other Immortals can be used if you don't want to use something from Gilgarod, but try not to explain what you know it is...explain what it is that would make Cassion want it.) One more wrap up post for me after this. It's been fun writing with ya'll and I hope I can do so again at some point. If you have any questions, you can reach out via pm.

[Arlo Creede]

Just like that. A few words and Arlo was freed. From the throne that had been holding him fast through hook or through crook, and from the sensation of everything that made him, him, being siphoned away. He didn't return to his usual physical self immediately, but considering he was able to stand freely when he wouldn't have managed it just a few trills ago, what had been done was swifly being undone. Then, though he had the box in his hands and it felt and seemed almost alive, as if it was calling on him to open it, he'd never had any intention of doing it before leaving this strange place. No matter the temptation to do otherwise.

The golem, all of them in fact, still treated him as if he was some sort of exalted individual, but as the gilt and glamor all fell back into place, Arlo knew that it was no longer for him. Trills later, he wouldn't even be surprised that all the faces in the portraits had changed. The parting words of the knight seemed cryptic, but his previous interactions with the Immortal Cassion had formed his belief that even was Tio brought to the throne in his wake, it would be nothing more, ulimitately, than a delay for the other man. And would Tio or any of the others have done the same? It was not at all unlikely.

It was that expectation that Tio would be delayed in returning, and only that, that Arlo was a little confounded to discover, wasn't the truth. And yet it confirmed there'd been no harm done, just as promised some time before. So having found Cassion sitting down to a feast, wating for them all, he dipped his head in respect and put his box down on the table. He had no reason to think that Tio would be genuinely angry about the tact he'd taken, if he even knew about it. After all, they'd competed against each other once before in a race through the wilderness and Tio had stopped at close to nothing short of doing what was required to gain the advantage. If there was indeed one to be had in this case.

Of course Cassion wanted a story. Arlo would have been very suprised, had he not. As a devotee who'd spent a good amount of time in the Immortal's presence prior to now, and had even adventured beside him, he had some insight that the others might not. What sorts of things Cassion might be interested in for instance. And yet, that insight didn't remotely guarantee success. His Immortal of choice was no pushover.

The young traveler and storyteller thought back to all the things he had seen and experienced since Schubert had shown up to collect him, and had ushered him to the place where Jesine herself would ultimately meet with them. His interactions with any number of Immortals, their challenges, the things they had given him. The things he'd experienced along the way. So much of what he'd seen remained a mystery. But sometimes it was imagination that provided the most interesting stories.

"What I've brought back," Arlo said as he sat down at the table near where he'd stood. He tapped a finger gently on the lid of the thing he'd put there. "oughtn't to fit inside this box. And yet, impossibly it does. Of all the things I've witnessed before or after, I knew the trill that I saw it, that was it." Except, he added then with a curious tilt of his head, even then he realized that it wasn't complete. As keys of a sort went, something was missing, and the void it was meant to fill shined and pulsed like a shard of quicksilver in the suns'light. "Then it came to me. It wasn't missing at all. That small piece was exactly where it was meant to be all along. In my pocket."

Arlo smiled, then shook his head. "But I digress. I should start at the beginning, or rather the middle nearer the end. Of all the things I saw in Gilgarod, it was the humblest of them that caught my eye in the end. There were a dozen of me there. Dozens more maybe," he added thoughtfully. "But each of them a version of my story, if only I'd taken a different path. Or if in the future, I might choose a dozen others. I know that now," Arlo seemed for all the world to confess, "But I didn't then. That missing piece was still a mystery to me."

"It was a staff you see. Carved not by mortal hands but shaped by nature lightening, snow, fire, history, and hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of hands through a millenia or more. It was the humblest looking thing I've ever seen. But I knew, that was it. And I knew what was missing once I was able to wrap my hand around it. Instinctively, I knew what it was called," Arlo added with a thoughtful and awed expression. "The staff of telling. And what I'd wrapped my hand around, had been possessed by the most common of shepherds or laborers before me. By princes and kings and politicians. By Immortals and even the Originals, who were also unsure of its origins. By a mighty and golden dragon that might have been as real as you or me, or one that had lived in just the imagination of a very small child who'd found the misplaced staff on a lonely forest path."

But he hadn't known all of that either, Arlo revealed, admitting that he was once again, digressing. Not until it struck him exactly what was missing. And that was when he'd reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin that Jesine had tossed him, for the simple action of having approached from the west. But was it the same coin? "I hadn't looked at that coin before," he admitted, and that part was true. He hadn't. "When it was tossed to me, I dropped it into my pocket. And when I pulled it out again and looked at it, I realize that in a sense, I'd had it much longer than that. Before me, my mother, my grandfather, and his father before him...who had carved it from wood back then."

The coin, which had carved on its face a crescent moon on which was seated a tall, broad shouldered traveler wearing a hat just like Arlo's....which had once in fact been Cassion's, had fit perfectly into that empty place atop that staff. "When I turned that staff into the place where the suns set, that place that like the future, you'll never reach no matter how far you travel, I saw a thousand different versions of a thousand different stories...I saw the what may be, the what ifs, the if onlys," he said with a grin but also with wonder. "And when I turned the staff, the face, to the east, I witnessed the what was and had been, and the what might have beens of all those who've held the staff before me."

"And my stories?" he added, and then smiled and shrugged. "Mine are ordinary, but still all of those versions of me that had gathered around, joined all the others of those before me, and all those who'll come after me. The true stories, the imagined stories, the ones that are both true and imagined, wondrous or terrible. But I sensed that the staff wasn't meant to stay in my hands. Maybe I was only there to carry the missing piece, to join it together with what had been lost so very long ago, and make sure that the thing ended up exactly where it needed to be for its next grand adventure, or two, or a hundred and two," he said and finally opened up the box, drawing out a staff six foot tall that should never have fit inside. Offering it to Cassion, he said, "The Staff of Telling, the key to stories told and yet to be told." Who better to have a staff like that, after all, than the greatest of all storytellers?

[Vivian Shiryu]

Vivian looked up at the Forgemaster as he called out to her, then tilted her head at his prophecy for her bloodline. Then, more out of reaction than anything else, she made to fling the melting key from her hand. She couldn't, of course, and when she looked at her hand, she smiled. "Thank you for your gift, Forgemaster." she said, before she noticed that he had gone to sleep. Or gone dormant. Or whatever it was giant dream blacksmiths did when they weren't smithing. Either way, it would appear that it was definitely time for her to move on.

When she came to the hall, she joined the group at the table. The charmer and hat-guy had retrieved their boxes, while the batty one had evidently came out of the place with naught but a dagger. Still, she had failed to retrieve her own box as well, so she couldn't exactly raise a complaint. When he bade them sit and eat, she did so, never one to shy away from a free meal, though she was careful to make sure her sword was secure before she sat down. When Cassion asked for their story, she let hat-guy finish his tale before she shrugged and held up her marked hand.

"I can't give you back your key, nor was I able to retrieve the box. And since I made my sword while I was there, I don't believe it to be what you seek." she said, before frowning and considering what the Forgemaster had said about Cassion, and what the other Immortals and their guide had said of him. "But I don't think that matters much, does it? You're not seeking something material, are you? Storyteller, that's what they all call you. And this game of yours is quite the story. I think it's your stories you want from us, more than any physical object." she said, her tone musing.

Then she smiled slightly. "I am...not a good storyteller, but I shall do my best to tell you my tale." she said, before taking a deep breath. "What I found on the other side of the door was a forge, the likes of which I have never seen. It's master was a great giant, many armed and too tall for me to conveniently measure. He bade me forge something for me, taken from my own experience." she said, holding up her sword. "I made this. The forging blocks were my weaknesses, fears, and insecurities. It was bound by the dream that lets me face that which would hold me back, and strengthened by my own reforging. Finally, the Forgemaster quenched it in my blood to remove the last of the impurities. He inspected the sword and told me to pick any of the treasures of the forge." she said, pausing to take a drink of water as she put down her sword.

"The head of his hammer was the chest the key you gave me would have opened, but...that treasure was not mine to claim. Prior to coming into Ilaren's service, my history is one of failure. None of the treasures of the Forgeheart were mine to claim, save for that which I forged myself, so it is that which I claimed. I said I would return if I were ever worthy to retrieve the chest. Then the Forgemaster melted the key into my hand, saying it would strengthen my bloodline and went back to sleep. So, with my tenure there done, I returned here." she said, before looking at Cassion again.

"But as I said, I do not believe it is my sword, or any material good, that is what you seek. Storyteller they called you, and Storyteller I believe you are. But a great storyteller, they are always looking for new tales to tell. It is that which I bring you, a new tale for your collection, one that I will make into but the first part of many." she said, her voice showing her determination, something that had been lacking in her voice this whole challenge. True, she had forged her sword, but it would be just as accurate to say that Shiryu had forged her as well. For the first time in a long time, she felt like herself, as opposed to the depressed failure that had hung on for the sake of her children. In truth, it was good to be back.

[Nauta F'mos Geey]

The aukari was distracted and not because of the wound which bizarrely healed with nary a sign of the cut though he thought it too effective for just being healed as the poisoner knew there would always be a scar even with the smallest of punctures. It was the private conversation which took place, if the unorthodox exchange between Nauta and Teesdat could be considered such. To ask a question, to get an answer popped right in the head; one of the not-aukari's many strange abilities and it was not even as simple as described. Nauta was unsure if it was the same for Teesdat but he he had to say-ask and wait for the other to think of the answer...

An exercise most absurd.

Yet the questions and answers continued turn for turn. Teesdat which his grandson believed knew everything already, wanted to be updated on the time he missed out of Sirothelle and his house. Nauta wanted to know more of the remarkable circumstances in his grandfather's changes and captivity at PrisonKeep. The older of the duo had the advantage of cutting out before an answer if he chose to as it was through his power the link could exist. According to him the younger Geey had yet to develop his Spark... whatever that- wait that was what it was?! When did that happen?

That distraction led the chef to automatically pick the best of the best from the selection of food; a privilege afforded to someone dedicated in a craft Sirothelle neglected for skills it believed effectively contribute to the cause. Only after he was seated comfortably he realized 'damn...' which in answer to Teesdat's query meant with the fod-sack immortals gunning for him the entire time, he was unsure if Cassion's banquet was safe. Sure there were the other mortals in attendance, but the immortals like the aukari, probably did not care of their wellbeing either.

The elder's counsel was for Nauta to not reject the food so the aukari reused the bright idea of his younger trials, to have the others test the food. "These are best stuff, for you, for you, for you, for you, for me..." he said as he distributed the food in hopes someone would first eat and display the symptoms of foul play. If it ended up poisoned it would obviously be by the immortal, not himself as Nauta saw no point with sabotage this late into the game. After that he was on his seat again, with a distinct "what?!" at the immortal's reveal of the items they retrieved.

If it was from Gilgarod, Nauta only had two; the dagger and his stowaway. The latter was not something the Geey would surrender and the dagger was nestled safely in his bag because of it's role in the escapade. The aukari did not want anyone to even catch a hint of it in case they might figure out what it was used for and more importantly, for who. Was there an alternative? Maybe, but the aukari was too exhausted to think and was content to listen to the others' first. Hopefully they might give him an idea or two to use but he was not optimistic of that possibility.

As always, Arlo had the words and lots of it; embellished and beguiling like a market hawker which to Nauta, cheapened his entire tale. Even if he knew how to build it up, the delay for the details was... off-putting. Vivian represented the opposite extreme though at least she was better as she went straight to the point. Nauta could understand her better than Arlo's rigmarole though unfortunately, she also took the easy route out which the aukari wanted to use.

At least both bought him the time he needed. Teesdat suggested for his grandson to be better acquainted with his birthright- to listen more attentively. By the ether his surroundings sung the tunes and he tapped into the frequencies; he found the tale he could use. One note he found in Arlo's narration struck a chord which Teesdat had to point out was absent in the other participants despite being ever present in the Hall even if only in a slightly stronger pitch. The note was at its loudest once Nauta focused on Cassion, as if the immortal was the most real representation of it where the others were merely echoes.

'Cassion, was source!'

The revelation Arlo may be linked to Cassion somehow to even have that shared quality would have another discouraged but not the aukari. He found his opportunity. He may not have notes weaving into his own oration like Arlo for a staff to appear out of that tiny box but the dutiful aukari knew the only thing important was the facts. The lead-in to his tale was of the Castle's Guts of Sirothelle, what it was to any aukari from the homelands and how PrisonKeep reminded him of it when he first saw the door. To anyone familiar with it, it was that terrible a place to be thrown into.

"And I had to go in it."

"Maybe if I got magic dagger to protect me from Castle's Gut painful choices, I less scared to go in" he said, in reference to the tool which facilitated his grandfather's escape although he only brought it up to see if there was any change in Cassion's demeanour to hint at the immortal's watchfulness over the participants' tests. Then he continued on with his description of the alien structure which he found... was alive! Actually the semblance of living as Nauta pointed out to his audience because Gilgarod itself was full of the dead- the losers and each of them craved life. His.

Gilgarod would have had it too if it was not for the aukaris' defiance, the defiance of both which was when Nauta's own account took a more interesting turn. He proudly spoke of his grandfather, Teesdat Geey and the little he knew of his patriarch's accomplishments as one of the Occult through his father. While pride was one thing, this was to lead to the truly interesting tale; one of betrayal as "my sadví found thing Faldrun wanted. A-grand-fracture!" although which, Nauta did not feel the need to say. He did not think Cassion sought the fracture although knowledge Faldrun knew of one should be useful to any immortal against the aggressive hothead.

Betrayal was the theme emphasized for a little over half a bit because "in return for sadví's faithful service, Faldrun tossed him into Gilgarod..." The fact Faldrun sucked needed no repeating though because of the tyrant, that was "where he found me." Call it fate, dumb luck, whatever; "he got me out of phälrothït grasp and asked me to help him escape." Well there was a choice, his grandfather or Cassion's prize but as he expressed it was a no brainer. Their bond was strong, strong enough that "sadví led me through Gilgarod, to escape with phälrothït and giant behind but we went up and up" with a little waggle of his hands to mimic wings.

And at the end when they reached the top? "I cut him loose to be free from Gilgarod and do his part of deal." That part was not too interesting and only if he was asked Nauta would say it was for his grandfather to make good with the rest of the Geeys, especially the aukari's own father the patriarch found lacking. It was the truth in a way... even if he omitted the more important bits such as how he 'cut' the elder loose and when Teesdat was to make amends but there were more important for Nauta in this last part of the game.

The item.

Of those he got that trial, it was one of the charms he plucked from Delroth's necklace which he offered Cassion. Nauta did not know what Cassion wanted but if it was as easy as the staff, they did not need to go through the theatrics. No... "what you want is näur" like Faldrun needed his Occult and "one which can get job done with..." he said as he handed Cassion back the key before he snuck a glance at the door to Jesine's corridors "...or without help of immortals. His point, even if it was a ruse, was made with a coin flipped four times. Once for each test which returned face up because "you made us go through test for reason" and he doubted it was just an errand in Gilgarod.

"Whether you meant to or not, you sent me to PrisonKeep where sadví was... where I could get him out. Not sure if you pull Faldrun or wanted to see if you can trust me but that," the charm passed over to the immortal, "you can use when time comes to see if you can trust me, just like I use mine to check you" because after all that, Nauta definitely did not end up a victim like Teesdat. Obviously if that was the idea Arlo would be ahead but whether or not Nauta got through this part of Cassion's tests, "its because of you sadví is free but, I left your prize behind. Only fair I pay back."

With that, Nauta hoped he had more than proved his mettle to Cassion and after the long oration, stifled a cough he had kept in before he returned to his seat. As he passed Tio, he slapped the man to get him to hurry with his turn. Maybe there was some truth in the old saying "save the best for last?" but that remained to be seen.